In computer networks, a plurality of network stations are interconnected via a communications medium. For example, Ethernet is a commonly used local area network scheme in which multiple stations are connected to a single shared serial path. These stations often communicate with a switch located between the shared data path and the stations connected to that path. Typically, the switch controls the communication of data packets on the network. The switch passes data frames received from a transmitting station to a destination station based on the header information in the received data frame, including source address and destination address.
One arrangement for generating a frame forwarding decision uses a direct addressing scheme, where the network switch includes a fixed address table storing switching logic for the destination addresses. Such arrangements, with fixed address tables, are typically unable to dynamically learn new addresses of stations that may have been added to the network after the initial configuration. A further problem with such arrangements is that a data packet is often "flooded" to all of the connected stations when the source or destination address is not found in the address table. This causes unnecessary transmission of data to stations that may end up discarding the packet, wasting both processing time and data throughput.